1st look inside stunning seafood restaurant opening on Las Vegas Strip

Pisces Bar & Seafare, the new seafood restaurant in Wynn Las Vegas, naturally draws inspiration from sea faring and ocean going and the nautical moment. But the Pisces nautical moment is not one of anchors and Breton stripes, of nets and glass balls and puddles of sand populated by faux crabs and sea gulls.

This nautical moment is more like life aboard a luxury yacht.

Which means the abundance of the briny deep on the plate, just a day from the ocean. Resplendent design, ranging from hand-blown fixtures to chairs upholstered in fish leather to monumental urns painted with merfolk, pieces that took five men to hoist into place.

Plus, knives etched with the Pisces logo, because this nautical moment extends from beam to bow to berth, with nothing too small (or too large) to consider.

“The way we work in this restaurant is detail and vision,” executive chef Martin Heierling said. “The focus is on being uncompromising.”

Seafood highlights

Fish arrives at Pisces, via a European fishmonger, from boats that work across the Mediterranean and nearby waters: off Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece and more. The catches ranges from umbrina (European drum) to branzino, from langoustines to bluefin tuna to orata, known in English as sea bream or gilt-head bream.

“The fish is so fresh, it’s still in rigor mortis,” said Heierling, whose career includes opening the old Sensi at Bellagio and a sous chef stint in New York City under the legendary Gray Kunz at Lespinasse, one of the finest restaurants ever to open in the U.S.

Heierling dry ages the orata for three days, grills it in a basket (for better handling and cooking), and serves it head-on, with harissa and a gust of tzatziki, perhaps.

Octopus, with a tender chew, receives a lemony hum from Syllektikon, a Greek olive oil made from unripe organic fruit and fresh lemons. Red pepper sherry spuma and Santorini fava bean purée provide a silky savory coverlet.

“It’s a Spanish octopus but with Greek accents,” Heierling said.

For ceviche in the style of Cadiz, the coastal Spanish city near the western entrance to the Mediterranean, sea bass is cured in lemon and a jab of lime zest. The ceviche calls on chiles, roasted yellow bell pepper sauce and, for a hit of umami, bonito dashi powder, or hon dashi. A whimsical fishbone tuile tops the ceviche.

Design details

Pisces looks onto the Lake of Dreams at Wynn, in the former Lakeside restaurant that has been utterly transformed by Todd-Avery Lenahan, the president and chief creative officer of Wynn Design and Development.

Fabric from Thailand mantles one wall. Appliquéd fish embroidered in India swim along the wall past golden convex mirrors. The largest mirror perfectly frames the reflection of the waterfall coursing into the lake; that’s no accident. Another wall features a stylized topographic map of the ocean floor.

Structural ceiling beams remain from Lakeside. They’ve been painted to resemble wood and set with metal studs, adding to the luxury yacht feel.

Glass orbs from Italy, the shape and color of each varying slightly, compose the chandeliers. Beneath, floors are tiled with fish mosaics. The grout has glitter to sparkle at night.

Back to the fish leather upholstery. The technique — tanning fish skins, including removing scales, to create a fabric — dates back thousands of years among coastal peoples. Today, skins from the fishing industry are used that would otherwise go to waste. The removed scales leave behind pockets that create textural temptation. You can’t help running your hands.

And those urns? They were fashioned by Melanie Sherman, a Kansas City, Missouri, ceramicist and porcelain artist commissioned by Lenahan. To make the largest urns, Sherman had to build a special 9-foot kiln.

Back on land

The menu at Pisces travels beyond the sea.

Say, to a loaf of pane sfogliato — Italian pull-apart bread — accompanied by a pool of that lemony olive oil or htipiti red pepper dip or creamy manouri cheese from northern Greece.

“It’s a laminated sourdough that tastes like a croissant,” Heierling said of the loaf. “It took a month’s worth of R&D to produce. These are the beautiful resources, the capacities we have in house.”

Caviar crowns jamón íberico croquetas bursting with béchamel — salt! custard! — made from the trim of the pig. For a snarl of lobster spaghettini, the dried pasta is sourced from one of the oldest pasta makers in Italy. The other pastas are made in-house using an heirloom wheat flour, also from Italy. For every kilogram of flour, 50 egg yolks are used, Heierling said.

A spatter of intensely salty Aleppo salt rides alongside a 10-ounce wagyu New York strip steak massaged with brown sugar porcini rub. “I always like to serve salt with steak,” Heierling said. “You serve it on the plate so you can just dip it.”

Valencia-style paella sports the proper soccarat, the crisp layer of rice that forms on the bottom of the paella pan. “We scrape it tableside. It’s always made for two,” Heierling said.

Sweet finish

Jennifer Yee, Wynn’s executive pastry chef, also helps crew the Pisces yacht, with what Heierling called “soulful desserts with sophistication.” Like tableside olive oil cake with lemon curd or frozen Greek yogurt with hot baklava doughnuts or a chocolate cake with feuilletine crunch served atop a fish “skeleton,” for a bit of confectionery trompe l’oeil.

Book your Pisces passage at wynnlasvegas.com/dining. The maiden voyage departs Saturday.

Contact Johnathan L. Wright at [email protected]. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.